1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to techniques for fabricating solid state memories and, more particularly, to techniques used in the fabrication of ultra-dense solid state memories.
2. Description of the Background
Techniques for fabricating solid state memories have been commercially available for many years. During that time, there has been, and continues to be, pressure to shrink the size of the individual memory cell so that memories of larger and larger capacity can be fabricated. That pressure has lead to the development of unique components. For example, the trench capacitor and stacked capacitor have been developed. Those components are three-dimensional structures. By fabricating the capacitors in an upward direction, less planar surface of the chip is used thereby permitting a more dense circuit architecture. In such three dimensional components, the edge or vertical portion of the component plays an important role in determining the component""s characteristics.
New fabrication techniques must often be developed to enable such unique components to be realized. Preferably, the techniques needed to fabricate such components are developed in such a manner that a manufacturer""s existing fabrication equipment can be used so that the expense of purchasing costly new equipment can be avoided, or at least postponed.
The pressure to continually fit more memory cells into a given amount of space has also lead to new circuit architectures. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,214,603 discloses a folded bitline, dynamic random access memory cell which utilizes a trench capacitor and a planar-configured access transistor that is stacked over the capacitor.
As components become smaller and are packed closer together, leakage and second order effects become more and more significant. Current circuit architectures fabricated with commercially available techniques, while very capable of producing dense memories, are not capable of being scaled down to the levels needed to produce ultra-dense memories on the order of 256 megabits and higher. Thus, the need exists for a method and circuit architecture for enabling active devices to be fabricated in such a manner that the active devices can be packed in an ultra-dense manner using currently available fabrication equipment.
The present invention is directed to a method of forming a partially isolated structure of sufficient size to permit the fabrication of an active device thereon. The method is comprised of the steps of depositing a gate oxide layer on a substrate. Material, such as a polysilicon layer and a nitride layer, is deposited on the gate oxide layer to protect the gate oxide layer. An active area is defined, typically by patterning a layer of photoresist. The protective material, the layer of oxide, and finally the substrate are etched to form a trench around the active area. Spacers are formed on the sides of the active area. The substrate is etched to deepen the trench around the active area to a point below the spacers. The substrate is oxidized at the bottom of the trench and horizontally under the active area to partially or completely isolate the active area from the substrate. The protective material and the spacers are removed and the trench is filled with an oxide.
The present invention is also directed to an isolated structure of sufficient size to permit the fabrication of an active device thereon. The structure is comprised of a substrate and a layer of gate oxide carried by the substrate in a manner which defines the area of the isolated structure. The substrate is oxidized under all or a portion of the area defined by the gate oxide at a depth sufficient to enable an active device to be fabricated in an unoxidized portion of the substrate occurring between the gate oxide layer and the oxidized portion of the substrate.
The method and apparatus of the present invention enable active devices to be packed into ultra-dense configurations using currently available fabrication equipment. For example, the present invention may be used to implement 256 megabit or 1 gigabit memories. Additionally, because the diode junctions of active devices are formed in areas of the substrate that are at least partially isolated from the remainder of the substrate, the junctions are less leaky. Also, the configuration of the field oxide provides excellent device to device isolation. Those, and other advantages and benefits of the present invention will become apparent from the Description Of The Preferred Embodiment hereinbelow.